Archive for September, 2009

Recasting Power – where muted anger says it all

I attended the packed out Recasting Power event last night in Birmingham. Featuring the Rt Hon Tony Benn (his granddaughter Emily Benn stood in his place), Charlie Elphicke (Conservative Prospective MP for Dover), Councillor Paul Tilsley (Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council), Charlie Beckett and members of Birmingham’s political and digital community discussing how online tools are transforming politics. To quote: ‘Recasting the Net aimed... 
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Blogging about ORANGE – a result!

Blogging about my terrible treatment at Orange [see the The future is NOT Orange] got a fantastic result. The press picked it up – both BBC Radio Shropshire and Shropshire Star. The BBC journalist contacted Orange Executive Office in Darlington (they only deal with journalists or industry people) who then got in touch direct. They read the Pesky People post and are looking for my letter of complaint (am I glad I blogged!). Orange has... 
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Disabled protest at Birmingham City Council ignored

Yesterday’s protest by Direct Action Network (DAN) against Birmingham City Council comes hot on the heals of criticism of the £2.8 million spent on the BCC website. DAN protested at BCC’s failure to fulfil it’s legal obligations to enable disabled people to live independently through direct payments system called The Independent Living Fund. Despite it being a legal requirement to offer such assessments. Check out some of demo pictures.... 
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How to navigate Birmingham City Council's website – go to the BBC

Birmingham City Council (BCC) spends a massive £2.8m on a website and they can’t even basic requirements around Accessibility right. They even send us off to the BBC to find out how to navigate their own site. Yet one of the aims of their Disability Equality Duty (2007-2010) is to: ‘mainstream disability equality within the City Council’s service areas’ Launched at the beginning of the week my response as one of the ‘Twitterati’... 
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Birmingham City Council launches new £3M inaccessible website

Today I witnessed Birmingham City Council change it’s tune from singing it was fully compliant with the W3C guidelines ‘We are pleased to announce that this web site meets with W3C WAI-AA and WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards.’ to quietly saying it ‘aims to meet’ them [changed at 09.30]. This retraction less than 10 hours after going live on a website costing over £2.4 million+ and we believe a direct result of our responses... 
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